1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manufacturing method of a ceramics component having a microstructure used in various fields of industry, for example, a manufacturing method of a ceramics component having a microstructure such as a composite piezoelectric material.
2. Description of the Background Art
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a structure of a composite piezoelectric material 21 as an example of a ceramics component having a microstructure.
Referring to FIG. 1, composite piezoelectric material 21 has a structure in which piezoelectric ceramics columns 22 are formed in a resin 23.
The conventional manufacturing of a composite piezoelectric material of such a structure includes the method of employing mechanical working such as cutting and abrasion, the process by laser abrasion as well as the method of using a mold with a microscopic pattern formed in the resin as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,676,906.
FIGS. 2-8 are sectional views showing an example of a manufacturing method of a ceramics component with a forest of microscopic columns, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,676,906.
Referring to FIG. 2, deep X-ray lithography is effected by directing synchrotron radiation (SR) 40 onto a conductive substrate 1 coated with a resist 2 that has sensitivity to X-ray through a mask 3 for X-ray lithography.
As X-ray lithography mask 3, a mask of a relatively thick absorber can be used formed of, for example, silicon nitride having a thickness of 2 .mu.m as a support film 31 and tungsten having a thickness of 5 .mu.m as an absorber pattern 32. Alternatively, nickel mesh having a thickness of at least 30 .mu.m can be used.
Referring to FIG. 3, a resist structure 4 is produced by a development process.
Referring to FIG. 4, nickel plating is applied on resist structure 4 to produce a nickel mold 5. Then, resist structure 4 is removed.
Referring to FIG. 5, resin molding is effected using the produced nickel mold 5 to form a resin mold 6. This resin mold 6 can be configured to have, for example, a hole of 25 .mu.m square and 300 .mu.m in depth arranged in a two dimensional manner at the pitch of 50 .mu.m.
Referring to FIG. 6, a ceramics slurry 17 is poured into resin mold 6 and then dried.
Referring to FIG. 7, resin mold 6 is removed by plasma 50.
Referring to FIG. 8, the binder is removed and baking is effected to obtain a ceramics structure 9 with many columns.
According to the conventional art disclosed in the above U.S. Pat. No. 5,676,906, there is a possibility of the microstructure collapsing due to the insufficient strength during removal of the resin mold if the solvent ratio of the used ceramics slurry is high. The structure subjected to the baking process becomes porous with the possibility of inducing problems from the standpoint of property and strength.
Furthermore, according to the conventional art, there was a case where warping occurs during baking since the shape differs between the top face and the bottom face of the ceramics component depending upon the absence/presence of a resin mold. It was extremely difficult to suppress such warping. Therefore, it was not easy to fabricate a ceramics component of a large area by the conventional method.